


i'm first, right?

by bazooka



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Epistolary, M/M, Texting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-12
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-09-16 22:23:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 18,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9292076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bazooka/pseuds/bazooka
Summary: 찬열My friend Doo Young-ah - no - Kyungsoo-yahappy birthdayi'm first, right?or: a semi-epistolary work in which Kyungsoo is an actor, Chanyeol works at a recording studio, and they've been friends since they were kids.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by [pcy's instagram post](https://www.instagram.com/p/BPIRFTSDc8B/?taken-by=real__pcy)  
> (the first two messages from each are taken directly from those texts)

 

2017년 1월 11일 목요일

* * *

**찬열**  
Jungsukkie hyung is healthy, right..?

**경수**  
ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ he's alive...

 

 

2017년 1월 12일 목요일

* * *

**찬열**  
My friend Doo Young-ah - no - Kyungsoo-ya  
Happy birthday  
I'm first, right?

**경수**  
yeah, you're the first chanyeol-ah ㅋㅋㅋ  
thank you ❤  
why are you still up?  
thought you had an early morning

**찬열**  
I think I can stay up until midnight to wish my BFF a happy birthday  
It's an important moment for our friendship  
We're finally the same age again

**경수**  
it's been  
like  
a month

**찬열**  
It's been 1 month and 16 days  
I looked it up.

**경수**  
a month and a half then  
i think our friendship can survive 1 month 16 days of me being younger

**찬열**  
Well it has so far  
But that doesn't mean anything

**경수**  
go to bed, chanyeol-ah  
i'll see you in 20 hours at Jongdae and Minseok's place

**찬열**  
19

**경수**  
what?

**찬열**  
19 hours 20 minutes

**경수**  
i'm putting my phone on silent


	2. Chapter 2

**찬열**  
Hey  
Hey  
Hey Kyungsoo  
Kyungsoo  
Kyungsoo, hey  
Kyungsoo-yah  
Hey Kyungsoo are you there?  
I hope you put your phone on silent  
Can you imagine if you were in the middle of a scene and you left your phone in your pocket and I just kept messaging you over and over  
And on your birthday!  
I bet the director would understand, though  
It's just your many fans bombarding you with birthday congratulations  
Wow, you must be really busy, you haven't said anything  
Hey what should I wear to your birthday party?

**경수**  
chanyeol

**찬열**  
Oh hey hi  
There you are  
What should I wear to your birthday party?

**경수**  
something nicer than what you wore the last time we hung out

**찬열**  
I don't remember what I wore

**경수**  


**찬열**  
How did you get that.

**경수**  
by being within a 2km radius of you while you were drunk

**찬열**  
Delete that

**경수**  
not if you don't chill out and stop messaging me while i'm at work

**찬열**  
  
You're the worst

**경수**  
being the birthday boy comes with its privileges  
see you later tonight

**찬열**  
I await our reunion with bated breath

**경수**  
cool


	3. Chapter 3

“I lied,” Chanyeol said, bending down so that his mouth was level with Kyungsoo’s ear. “It actually did end up being twenty hour— oh fuck, my ribs—”

“You scared the shit out of me,” Kyungsoo stammered, turning and fumbling as he tried to catch Chanyeol before he hit the floor. “First you’re late, and then you sneak up on me, and then you almost die on my birthday...”

“To be fair,” Chanyeol wheezed, slinging one arm around Kyungsoo’s shoulders, “you’re who would have killed me.”

“Shut up. Why are you always like this?”

“Just lucky, I guess.” He tweaked Kyungsoo’s nose and almost got elbowed again. “What else are best friends for?”

They’d been friends since they were kids (are thirteen year olds really kids? whatever, thirteen was like ten years ago, it counted) and Chanyeol had started calling Kyungsoo his best friend ever since the summer they were both seventeen. It had been in late July, when it was hot and stifling, and they took every opportunity to take Kyungsoo’s older brother’s car out for a drive after sunset, rolling down the windows and driving too fast on whatever freeway they ended up on.

(“Because we are,” Chanyeol had said matter-of-factly when Kyungsoo had shot him a curious look. He’d shrugged. Kicked one foot on the dashboard. Stared out the window at the stars, unpolluted by light from the surface of the earth.)

"Hey, have I introduced you to Jimin?"

Kyungsoo looked at him, expression unreadable. Maybe it would have bothered Chanyeol had it been anyone else, but Kyungsoo was a master of the Resting IDGAF Face and as long as he wasn't advancing on you with murder in his suddenly very readable eyes it was a fair bet that it wasn't particularly dangerous. "Jimin?" he echoed. He swirled the ice in his drunk as though lost in thought. "I don't think I've met her. Is she your latest?"

It wasn't a particularly fair question, Chanyeol felt. He'd pick up girls sometimes, ask women out for coffee or drinks but he wasn't some kind of womanizer. He just liked the company, really. (The sex was just a very welcome bonus.)

"No," Chanyeol said. "He's a dude, for one thing." Kyungsoo's eyes flickered away, distracted by sudden movement on the other side of the room. "Apparently he works in the legal department? We met, like... years ago, I dunno, I think he was a new hire making the rounds."

"You've known a work colleague for several years," Kyungsoo said mildly, putting the lip of his cup up to his mouth, "and you haven't introduced them to me? Is the apocalypse nigh? Are we in the end times?"

"Don't be like that. I just said that's when I met him. What are you drinking?"

"Betrayal," Kyungsoo said. He looked down into the depths of the cup as though trying to read the future in the leftover slivers of ice sloshing at the bottom. "I never thought this day would come. You're leaving me for another man."

"Oh yeah, I forgot, he and I are going on a super romantic date next Friday." Kyungsoo choked on the last swallow of his drink and ended up spitting most of it back into his cup. "Um, gross?"

"You're going on a date with a guy?" Kyungsoo ogled him, lips slick and shining from the alcohol he'd just had to spit out. "We really are in the end times."

"I'm fucking with you," Chanyeol said, throwing an arm around Kyungsoo's shoulders in a loose faux-headlock. "Why would I go on a super romantic date with a guy who wasn't you? You know you're the only man for me."

Kyungsoo shrugged him off, wiping his mouth with the back of his wrist. "Don't," he said, tone dark. "So what, this Jimin guy is like your work buddy now?"

"He's nice," Chanyeol said. (Why did he feel like he was on the defensive? Why did he feel like he needed to defend himself?) "He and I talked about music at the company christmas party - you know, the one I invited you to but you never returned my calls—"

"I don't really like parties," Kyungsoo said, standing in the middle of his very own birthday party.

"You're at a party."

"Not of my own volition."

"Right, like anybody's able to make you do anything against your will."

"... I was blackmailed," Kyungsoo muttered under his breath, cheeks pinking slightly. "You'd be amazed what kind of dirt Jongdae can get on you."

“No I wouldn’t,” Chanyeol said. “Don’t ask,” he added quickly as Kyungsoo looked up at him with that almost unreadable look on his face that Chanyeol had learned meant curiosity. “Let’s just say I’m hoping against hope that he’s forgotten about it.”

“Minseok said he keeps a spreadsheet,” Kyungsoo said mildly, looking back out over the crowd of people. “He could probably make half of the residents of the city into his personal slaves for a year.”

“With great power,” Chanyeol said gravely, hand over his heart, “comes great responsibility. You have to hand it to them, though - they kept it really low key this year.”

“Mm.” Kyungsoo reached out to drop his empty glass onto the tray of a passing waiter and picking up a flute of something mysteriously blue and bubbly. “Right, I forgot that this is low key for you.”

“It’s only like three hundred people, Soo.”

“Two hundred and eighty too many. Surprised Jimin isn’t one of them. Too early in your relationship to invite him to your best friend’s birthday party?”

“Something like that,” Chanyeol said, focus skimming from Kyungsoo’s drink to Kyungsoo’s hand to Kyungsoo’s sweater to the line of Kyungsoo’s throat. “You’re in front of a camera literally all day. Every pore on your face will be recreated on massive screens for people to watch, half the time in 3d glasses so they can really get that up close and personal look with your eyelashes, your mouth, your earlobes—”

“That’s different,” Kyungsoo interrupted, crossing in front of him to walk along the edge of the party. Their eyes had met for a fraction of a second, the way that meant follow me. “Footage is edited to within an inch of its nonexistent life. Nobody’s gonna see my pores because they smooth everything in post these days.”

Chanyeol trailed after him, his walk stuttered and awkward as he tried to avoid stepping on Kyungsoo’s heels. “I just read a spread on you the other day—”

“Christ...”

“—and it very clearly stated,” he continued, choosing to ignore (as he always did) Kyungsoo’s snort of irritation, “that you know how to make love to the camera. Make love,” he repeated, nudging Kyungsoo in the shoulder as they wandered through the crowd toward the tables filled with hors d’oeuvres and cupcakes and little candy buffets and just way, way too much food. (He made a mental note to ask after the catering company Minseok had hired.) “If you can make love to a camera, what makes you think you can’t make love to real people?” He hesitated. “You know what I mean.”

“Do I?”

Chanyeol pointedly did not notice Kyungsoo’s hand trembling as he reached out to pluck a mysterious confection off of a multi-tier serving tower. The confection was pink and shimmery and had been adorned with a mindbogglingly intricate fondant rose. “Have you eaten any real food today?”

“Chocolate is real food,” Kyungsoo said matter-of-factly, words slurred by ganache. “Cocoa beans are a vegetable. I’m eating a salad.”

“You’re being ridiculous,” Chanyeol said. “Let me at least—”

“I can’t be here anymore,” Kyungsoo said suddenly, pushing his barely touched drink blindly in Chanyeol’s direction as his knees buckled just a tiny bit - he caught himself, but Chanyeol was the only party attendee who knew just how close a thing it really was. “It - it’s too loud.”

It wasn’t very loud, all things considered - Jongdae had planned this birthday party with Kyungsoo’s preferences in mind, even if he had ended up with what Kyungsoo wanted x6. The music was quiet and soothing, piped in rather than live because it was easier to control the volume that way. The most alcoholic out of the cocktails making rounds through the crowd wouldn’t get anybody drunk if only because you’d have to take a piss halfway through, and a sober crowd was a quiet crowd.

Correction: it wasn’t very loud for _Chanyeol_. Kyungsoo, as usual, was a different story.

“Hold on just a sec,” Chanyeol said, keeping his voice as steady and calm as he could, searching the crowd until he found the eyes of a waiter. A quick shared nod and Chanyeol curved one arm around Kyungsoo’s narrow shoulders, grounding him and holding him up and guiding him away all at once. “Should I get your mom?”

Kyungsoo laughed. “God. No, don’t get my mom. She’ll fuss.”

“Fussing is bad. Got it.”

“Don’t you start fussing,” Kyungsoo breathed, letting Chanyeol pull him along into a side hallway hidden behind a curtain. “You can fuss over that Jimin guy instead if you really feel the urge.”

“I try to avoid fussing on general principle.”

A quick, almost silent intake of breath, shaking and ashamed. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” He knew for what. Kyungsoo always apologized, but if anything the apology was worse than the imagined slight. “It was getting boring. I’d rather hang out with my bee eff eff.”

“You’re stupid,” Kyungsoo said.

“I’m not. I’m a genius. I’ve won awards. Hold on a - what the fuck, is this locked? Oh, no, there it goes.”

It was a library of sorts, small but with an impressively broad selection hosted in built-in shelves, a fireplace, a living room set that was equally understated as it was expensive. Chanyeol deposited Kyungsoo on the love seat and claimed the couch for himself, kicking his feet up on the cushions with a practiced familiarity. “I think it’s time for a nap,” he said, watching Kyungsoo through his eyelashes.

“Yeah,” Kyungsoo said.

Chanyeol waited for Kyungsoo’s breath to slow, for his fists to unclench, for his eyes to close gently instead twisted tightly shut.

Jongdae was going to get an earful from him later. Three hundred people? What had he been thinking?

It was what it was. Chanyeol rolled onto his side, propping his head up so he could watch Kyungsoo sleep it off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi my name's bazooka and i make everything complicated


	4. Chapter 4

**찬열**  
Whoa hey look at this  
  
This is classic

**경수**  
oh my god  
why did you SCREEN CAP that

**찬열**  
Technically I didn't screen cap it  
Baekhyun did  
Then he sent it to me

**경수**  
why would he do that  
he knows what you're like

**찬열**  
Yeah pretty sure he sent it to me BECAUSE he knows what I'm like  
The only person who likes bothering you more than me is Baekhyun

**경수**  
why do we still out with our old college buddies, anyway

**찬열**  
We went to Julliard  
They're more than just "old college buddies"

**경수**  
for you, maybe

**찬열**  
Kyungsoo

**경수**  
chanyeol

**찬열**  
Don't act all cold  
Don't act all frozen

**경수**  
oh no  
chanyeol please don't

**찬열**  
Do you want to build a snowman  
Or are you too busy concealing and not feeling

**경수**  
i'm not the elsa to your anna

**찬열**  
You say that now

**경수**  
i say that forever  
we're not siblings, for one thing

**찬열**  
Thank god

**경수**  
that's my line

**찬열**  
Hey!

**경수**  
  
i have to go  
makeup's yelling at me

**찬열**  
Cool  
I'm gonna hang out eating SNACKS  
  
Take that


	5. Chapter 5

**찬열**  
KYUNGSOO  
SOO-YAH  
KYUNGSOO-YAH I HAVE AN URGENT PROBLEM

**경수**  
r u ok??  
grabbing coat brt

**찬열**  
  
Stop by CVS on your way over  
I ate my last bag of honey chips

**경수**  
ㅊㅏㄴㅇㅕㄹ  
i just ran out of the fucking studio becasue you finishe dyour CHIPS  
???????????????

**찬열**  
I'm tall  
I need to consume a lot of calories, Kyungsoo-yah  
It's 7pm and I'm bored and lonely  
Aren't you done shooting yet?

**경수**  
no, i'm not  
now i'll be here even later  
i'm going to tell the director you died

**찬열**  
But she'll know you're lying  
I'm too famous

**경수**  
don't worry  
ur dying tonight

**찬열**  
I know!  
From starvation!!

**경수**  
i'm gonna borrow a gun from the set

**찬열**  
Mm yeah pretty sure they're not real guns

**경수**  
you don't need bullets to pistol whip somebody

**찬열**  
That is the most threatening thing you've ever said to me  
My little sweet innocent flower is growing up into a hardass  
I'm so proud

**경수**  
did you just text me because you're bored?

**찬열**  
  
That and I miss you

**경수**  


**찬열**  
Do you want to come over after you're done?

**경수**  
of course

**찬열**  
Yay!!

**경수**  
i'll have to in order to pistol whip you

**찬열**  
Hey  
:(  
Were you actually in the middle of a scene?  
If yes, why did you have your phone

**경수**  
no  
it was still rude tho

**찬열**  
It was urgent  
I cannot tell a lie

**경수**  
that's empirically incorrect

**찬열**  
You didn't actually run out of the studio, did you?

**경수**  
why would i do that

**찬열**  
Oh my god, you did.

**경수**  
i didn't say that

**찬열**  
But you're not denying it

**경수**  
why should i deny something so obviously ridiculous  
you're being stupid

**찬열**  
I can't believe you actually bolted out of the studio because I said I was having an urgent problem

**경수**  
stop saying that

**찬열**  
I'm really sorry, I didn't realize how whipped you are

**경수**  
whipped????

**찬열**  
Yeah  
For me  
I'll be more careful in the future  
With great power comes great responsibility

**경수**  
shut up

**찬열**  
Are you coming over later?

**경수**  
it'll be really late

**찬열**  
Kyungsoo, this is me we're talking about

**경수**  
true  
want me to bring more honey chips?

**찬열**  
You are a god among men.

**경수**  
i know  
now buzz off

**찬열**  
Buzzing off  
Kyungsoo-yah saranghae~

**경수**  
❤


	6. Chapter 6

Kyungsoo didn't have to knock because he never had to knock. That wasn't how things worked. That was never how anything had ever worked with them. It was easy enough, really - the code on Kyungsoo's door was Chanyeol's birthday and the code on Chanyeol's door was Kyungsoo's birthday. Chanyeol couldn't remember when that had started in the first place but he also tried not to think about it. It was the sort of thing that just seemed to happen, it was just like that one day and it felt like it had always been that way and he just tried not to think about it.

With his headphones on he didn't hear the sweet singing tone of the lock, or the click of the latch, or the thump of shoes in his entryway, or the sound of a plastic bag full of chips hitting the floor, or the quiet swearing that followed. He was in his own world, listening to music even though it was what he did all day because sometimes when your passion becomes your job you still have to create something you love.

Kyungsoo announced his presence with a rap of his knuckles against the back of Chanyeol's head, and it was half reaction and half habit when Chanyeol coughed out a high-pitched and wordless complaint and arched away. "Oh my god," he said, grappling to pull his headphones off and turn his chair around without tangling any more cords than were strictly necessary. "You surprised the hell out of me, what are you—"

The cord to his headphones pulled out of the port with a crackling popping noise and his speakers picked up the slack (the kind of speakers only professionals can afford, let alone find) and the song he'd been listening to blasted at full volume. Chanyeol was pretty sure Kyungsoo had said something but he couldn't hear it over the noise. He couldn't pay attention because fuck was it loud and fuck was it unfinished and fuck, fuck, fuck, he hadn't played this one for Kyungsoo yet and he was spoiling the whole thing.

The music cut out hard, leaving a shellshocked humming sort of noise in its wake. Chanyeol and Kyungsoo stared at each other for a second.

"I can't believe you would do that to me," Kyungsoo said, voice calm but just a tiny bit louder than usual.

"I didn't mean to, I was—"

"Shut up." Kyungsoo cracked the tiniest grin and dumped a plastic bag of snacks on Chanyeol's lap. "Some of them are going to be a little bit crushed because I tripped over your shoes and dropped them on the floor."

"You're amazing," Chanyeol said. "The best human in the universe, living or dead, bar none."

Kyungsoo dodged away from him as he stood up, reaching out to embrace him like a python crushing its prey. "Don't," he said, but he was almost laughing when he spoke. Chanyeol decided that it was fine, the way his heart warmed from the awkward lopsided smile on Kyungsoo's face. "Just come hang out and eat some snacks. I'm exhausted."

"I've been waiting for you to come and say just those words to me," Chanyeol sighed, bringing the back of his wrist to his forehead in an exaggerated swoon. "You're so good to me."

All he got in reply was a grunt as Kyungsoo pulled out of his orbit, turning to wander out of Chanyeol's studio and over to the kitchen. His slippers scuffed on the white carpet - and they really were his slippers, not anybody else's. They weren't communal. They were Kyungsoo's, and they lived out their little slipper lives happily on the linoleum of Chanyeol's entryway.

("It's because you're so damn tiny," Chanyeol had said, holding the brand new slippers up in the air and wiggling them in Kyungsoo's face. "These are yours because I don't want to have a Cinderella situation on my hands.")

"They didn't have a lot of honey chips," Kyungsoo was saying. (Chanyeol remembered that he lived in reality and as such had to interact with it. It was a rude awakening.) "So I bought what they had and then got a bunch of other - what are you doing?"

It was a good question, really, and one for which Chanyeol didn't quite have an answer. The physics of it was Chanyeol's arms looped around Kyungsoo's narrow shoulders, Chanyeol's face buried in Kyungsoo's hair. The motivation for it was a sudden surge of affection for this small, compact person who at the same time was also so, so vast. A window, a small opening into an infinitely complex universe that Chanyeol could spend his whole life exploring.

"My Best Friend Forever brought me snacks," Chanyeol sighed into Kyungsoo's hair, sending the strands fluttering in the brief whisper of breath. "I'm just thanking the Lord for giving me this gift."

"Don't be gross," Kyungsoo said, and if Chanyeol didn't know any better he might have thought Kyungsoo hesitated for just half a second before speaking. "Do you talk to your Jimin like this?"

"Well he's not my best friend, so... no, I don’t." Chanyeol adjusted his grip, twisting his arms back again to flip Kyungsoo's hood over his head before reaching around and grabbing a bag of honey chips out of the bag despite Kyungsoo's offended squawk. "Unless you mean me talking to Jimin about how dreamy you are, in which case yes, I do." He pinched Kyungsoo's cheek, ignoring Kyungsoo's fists for a second as he wiggled his hand. "Can't have anybody thinking my best friend isn't the best human in the universe, living or dead, bar—"

"I get it," Kyungsoo muttered, finally managing to smack Chanyeol off and away. "You don't have to be all clingy about it. Did you already get the pepero? I was gonna—"

"You can have it." Chanyeol slid the package back down the counter as he headed to the living room. "Do you wanna watch something?"

"I can't understand you with your mouth full," Kyungsoo said, trotting a little to catch up. "And no." He paused briefly. "Maybe. I don't know. I mean I was stuck on set for the last thirty-four hours, but—"

"Thirty-four hours?" Chanyeol straightened up where he'd fallen on the couch. "They seriously had you there for thirty-four hours straight?"

Kyungsoo seemed to consider this for a second. "Maybe it was closer to thirty-three," he said, pulling open the foil wrapper and putting a pepero stick in his mouth in the way Chanyeol always thought of as The Pensive Chomp. "I got to sleep for part of it. I just had to be on set."

"How much did you sleep?"

"Couple hours."

Chanyeol threw a chip at him. "A couple hours? A couple hours. That's bullshit, Soo. Why the hell are you here and not at home, in bed?"

Kyungsoo closed his eyes and tipped over, slowly, gently, until his head was resting on the curve of Chanyeol's chest. "Don't ask stupid questions," he said. “Put on a movie.”

 

The sun beamed through the window like a laser, unfiltered by curtains and burning at his eyes. Chanyeol whined and rolled his head over on the back of the couch where he’d passed out last night - Kyungsoo’s head on his shoulder, Kyungsoo’s arm looped around his waist. When he sighed, sucked in a breath, he could still smell Kyungsoo’s no-nonsense shampoo, tea tree oil and green tea against his shoulder. The room was hotter than it should have been, cold air kept outside by the same glass that let in light, and when Chanyeol opened his eyes Kyungsoo, despite the scent of tea tree oil and green tea still hanging in the air, wasn’t there at all.

A glance at the oversized clock hanging on the wall in the dining room told him it wasn’t even eight yet. Kyungsoo had left sometime between one in the morning and seven o’clock. Chanyeol felt like he should be surprised, that it didn't make sense for Kyungsoo to appear at his door in the middle of the night and vanish into the ether by sunrise. He wasn't, though. It wasn't a surprise when he opened his eyes to find Kyungsoo gone.

He sat up. Stretched. Cracked his back a few times and stood up, kicking through a small field of chip bags and pepero wrappers to make his way toward the bathroom. Kyungsoo was gone because Kyungsoo was always gone in the morning, appearing and then disappearing like a ghost, only truly present in Chanyeol's life in the form of texts and late night conversations. It was like he was only real at night, sometimes.

The bathroom door swung open under his hand and when he looked up there was a sticky note in the center of the broad mirror over the sink.

_i liked the song_ , it said. Then there was a little smiley face, but the kind of smiley face Kyungsoo had developed over the years, starting in middle school and becoming steadily more sophisticated with the passage of time - it was Kyungsoo: circles for eyes, a heart for a mouth, heavy eyebrows and twin thumbs-up on either side.

Kyungsoo liked the song, which was nice. It was nice. Chanyeol pulled the note carefully away from the glass with thumb and forefinger to look at it just a little bit closer, before realizing his mistake and sticking it firmly back onto the mirror again. (Was it stupid, the way he wanted to see it all the time? Couldn't be. Everyone likes compliments.)

He took a picture of it, (at an angle, so his ridiculous bedhead didn't show up in the mirror), and snapchatted it to Kyungsoo with no caption. He only had to wait a few seconds before his phone dinged again. Kyungsoo, sleepy-eyed in a makeup chair with his hair pulled back in an alligator clip and a slow, lopsided smile on his face, giving the camera a half-hearted thumbs up.

It was funny for a second until Chanyeol noticed the yellow-beige color correction makeup under his eyes, caked on but still not quite thick enough to hide the dark circles there. He looked almost bruised, marked up, his eyelids pink and swollen from lack of sleep, lips chapped from mild dehydration and maybe (probably) one too many swipes with the tip of a particularly anxious tongue.

Chanyeol closed out of snapchat and flipped over to make a call. It rang in his ear for barely two seconds before the other line picked up, and Chanyeol said, "Kyungsoo's doing that thing again."

"Well," Jongdae said, voice crackling a little over the connection. "I guess you'd know. What do you need?"


	7. Chapter 7

**경수**  
  
you look stupid when you're sleeping

**찬열**  
I'm touched that you watched me sleeping  
#BetterLoveStoryThanTwilight

**경수**  
it was hard not to  
you snore like a lawn mower

**찬열**  
That's not true

**경수**  
my eardrums beg to differ  
something's out of alignment in there

**찬열**  
Are you back at the set?

**경수**  
of course i'm back at the set  
somebody messed up a shoot yesterday  
so we had to go through it again early this morning

**찬열**  
???

**경수**  
to simulate a sunset  
the production company only has the lot until like 1pm or something

**찬열**  
Oh shit  
It was me, wasn't it

**경수**  
what was you

**찬열**  
I'm the somebody who messed up a shoot

**경수**  
nah

**찬열**  
Oh my god, I really am  
Soo  
Fuck  
I'm really sorry

**경수**  
i never said it was you  
unclench

**찬열**  
I can't, I'm too high strung  
If only my BFF could comfort me

**경수**  
s t o p  
i'm getting weird looks  
stop being stupid

**찬열**  
That'll be a while  
Are you crying about how much you love me?

**경수**  
laughing  
because you're an idiot  
what are you doing today?

**찬열**  
  
Don't worry about me, I'm grabbing lunch with Jongdae

**경수**  
oh  
that's cool  
just for fun?

**찬열**  
Sometimes you just have to go to Jongdae for advice  
Plus he promised to buy me the king size bingsu and if I ever turn down an offer like that you can mark me down as deceased

**경수**  
duly noted  
how is he?

**찬열**  
He and I are currently discussing how much we love and care about you  
Do Kyungsoo, Korea's Male Ingenue Fairy

**경수**  
no  
i told you not to

**찬열**  
You didn't tell Jongdae  
  
These are really good shots

**경수**  
chanyeol  
seriously  
don't

**찬열**  
Look at the jawline in this one, you could julienne a stalactite with that  


**경수**  
i said don't

**찬열**  
Jongdae and I just love to see you

**경수**  
well don't  
don't look at me like that  
i told you not to look at the Elle spread  
don't fucking look at it

**찬열**  
I'm really sorry  
I wasn't thinking  
You're right  
Kyungsoo?


	8. Chapter 8

"When you said you thought he was doing that thing again," Jongdae said, "I'll admit that I was expecting things to not quite be so bad."

"He's been way better than that lately." Chanyeol hunched forward over the edge of the table, elbows propping up his weight. He couldn't take his eyes off of the screen, off of the last few messages Kyungsoo had sent him. "Like he's been anxious, right, and last night he showed up at midnight and we just watched a movie and that usually means he's getting stressed, but—"

"God." Jongdae shook his head, running one hand back through his hair only for his bangs to fall right back into his face. "When are you just going to propose? You know everything about him."

"You can know a lot about somebody and not be in love with them," Chanyeol mumbled, avoiding Jongdae's eyes. "We're talking about Kyungsoo. He's heading for a breakdown again and I need..."

"... Help?"

Chanyeol made a face, annoyance and embarrassment and resignation all at once. "I guess. I don't know yet."

Jongdae laughed, but it was the long-suffering laugh of the only responsible person in a room full of five year olds. "How about you start by talking to me about what he's been doing and we can figure things out from there."

Over drinks they talked about Kyungsoo's birthday, how he'd gotten stuck inside his head for some reason. The fact that he had barely eaten that day. How he'd held onto his security and calm with a white-knuckled grip until he broke, nearly collapsing in Chanyeol's arms.

"So maybe not three hundred invitees next year," Chanyeol said, knocking back the last of his hard cider and shooting Jongdae the kind of look which he hoped clearly read You Should Have Known Better. "Just a thought."

"He said it was fine when I was planning it," Jongdae grumbled, sticking his nose into the bowl of his now empty red wine glass. "It's not like I just sprang it on him last minute."

Over lunch they talked about how Kyungsoo had been on a hair trigger. ("You're serious," Jongdae had said. "He actually ran out of the studio?") How he'd been aggressive and strange. How he'd showed up and brought snacks and then fell into fitful sleep on the curve of Chanyeol's body, disappearing at some point in the early morning before Chanyeol woke up.

"You said that's not unusual?" Jongdae arched his eyebrows higher than Chanyeol had previously thought humanly possible. "He just shows up at midnight sometimes and you cuddle on the couch."

"We don't _cuddle_ ," Chanyeol said, stuffing the last dumpling in his mouth. "That's weird."

“Don't talk with your mouth full."

“Sounds like the voice of experience.”

“Minseok has better manners than you.”

Over dessert they talked about how Kyungsoo had asked Chanyeol not to look at that Elle spread. (Chanyeol had thought they were just joking around. Why had he thought that? Was he stupid? Well... yes. But not usually that particular kind of stupid.) It had been sort of a weird request, honestly, but Chanyeol hadn't even thought about it.

"Is there anything weird in the spread?"

"I didn't read any of it," Chanyeol said, scrolling through his phone's camera roll to delete every photo he'd copied over to his chat with Kyungsoo. "You'd have to tell me. But don't, because he told me not to look and I did."

"You're even more whipped than I am," Jongdae said back, chasing the last glob of formerly-hot fudge around the bottom of the glass. "It's almost as cute as it is annoying. Is there anything you wouldn't do for him?"

"Homicide," Chanyeol said back, not looking up from the important work of getting every last crumb of the chocolate cake he'd just finished off of the plate.

"You sure?"

Chanyeol opened his mouth. Closed it again. "Well, I mean... I don't think Kyungsoo would tell me to kill somebody for no good reason—"

"I can't listen to this anymore," Jongdae said. "Let's go back to the part where Kyungsoo's sanity is slowly eroding in the inexorable current of social interaction."

"You think that's what's going on?"

"I don't know. You're the only one who can get anything sincere out of him when he gets like this."

"It's like pulling teeth," Chanyeol said.

"The rest of us can't even get him to open his mouth," Jongdae said back. "You're still a step up there." He inclined his head to one side, eyes distant and pensive. "It seems like something more complicated than his usual anxiety. Have you noticed anything changing in his life lately? New movies don't count."

"He had his birthday," Chanyeol mumbled, propping his chin up on the heel of his palm. "But he'd been kind of acting weird before that. The panic attack at the party just clinched it for me."

Jongdae winced, guilt writ large across his face. "You didn't say it was a panic attack."

"Sometimes I forget that you don't know him very well."

"Rude."

"You know what I mean." He sat upright, leaning back in his chair as he crossed his arms loosely over his diaphragm. "He gets anxious a lot of the time but lately it's like he's dropping every tell all at once and I can't figure out why."

Jongdae blinked. Leaned forward to study him a little bit closer than was strictly comfortable. "What about you? Has anything changed in your life lately?"

"I don't think so?" God, was there anything? There were all kinds of different projects, ending and starting and stalling and accelerating. None of that affected Kyungsoo or their friendship really - sometimes Chanyeol would complain and Kyungsoo would listen to him with one ear, but that was pretty much it. Chanyeol hadn't moved. He hadn't gotten a girlfriend. Nobody had gotten married or had a kid or died or anything. He still worked at the same studio he'd been with for three years.

"I made a new work friend," Chanyeol said. "But I have a lot of work friends, he knows a lot of them. Hell, at least five of them were invited to his birthday party."

Jongdae just stared at him for a few seconds. "Talk to me about this new work friend."

"His name's Park Jimin, and—"

"Jimin? Isn't that a girl's name?"

"Be a little more open minded, man. Anyway so yeah his name's Jimin, he's nice. He reminds me of Kyungsoo a little bit? Not a lot," he tacked on quickly. "They've got some similar features, that's all. Their mouths."

There was a moment of quiet, broken almost immediately by a member of the waitstaff leaving the check at the end of the table. "I'll get it," Chanyeol said. (Jongdae didn't even make the motions to grab the check first.)

"You really want my opinion?" Jongdae asked eventually, watching Chanyeol struggle silently over how much to tip.

"I didn't buy you lunch because you're pretty."

"You should have," Jongdae snapped, tossing his hair back. "My opinion is that you should go over to Kyungsoo's place unannounced, when you know he's home."

"Unannounced?"

Jongdae leaned forward conspiratorially. "You don't want to give him a chance to brace himself or else he'll have a whole conversation set up to get you off track."

"Kyungsoo wouldn't—"

"He would and he does," Jongdae interrupted. "Trust me. Sometimes watching you two talk is like watching Hansel and Gretel. You know, when they're talking to the witch and she's just playing with them?"

"So Kyungsoo's the witch?"

"Kyungsoo's the witch."

"Who am I, then?"

"The stupid one. Point is: don't give him time to prepare if you want to get anything straightforward out of him."

"I don't know what to ask him."

"Tell him you miss him, to start with." Jongdae pushed his chair out and away from the table, standing to swing his jacket over his shoulders. "I don't know how to explain, but I'm pretty sure that if you're not a huge idiot that'll get you the answers you need."

"I tell him I miss him all the time," Chanyeol said, stumbling to his feet. "What's that gonna achieve?"

"Tell him you miss him," Jongdae said, walking past him toward the front door of the restaurant. "Face to face. See what happens."

"That's stupid," Chanyeol yelled after him - before promptly getting shushed by everyone within earshot.

 

* * *

**찬열**  
That's stupid

**종대**  
Maybe.  
There's only one way to find out.

* * *

 

 _You should go over to Kyungsoo's place unannounced_ , Jongdae's voice echoed in the back of his head. _Don’t give him a chance to brace himself._

Chanyeol didn't feel braced. He felt stupid, standing there in front of Kyungsoo's door, one hand hovering over the keypad. (The code was his birthday, the code on Kyungsoo's front door was Chanyeol's birthday. God, he missed Kyungsoo so much.) _Don't give him a chance to brace himself._

He settled for ringing the doorbell.

There was quiet for a while, a little longer than maybe it should have been, and Chanyeol found himself wondering if Kyungsoo wasn't actually at home at all. But then there were footsteps, unhurried but still quick - symptomatic of Kyungsoo's short legs. The tinny trill of the latch disengaging. The sigh of Kyungsoo opening the door.

"Oh," Kyungsoo said, looking up (and up, and up) into Chanyeol's face. "You, um - you didn't text me. Were you just—"

"I miss you," Chanyeol said.

He didn't it say it because Jongdae told him to. Maybe he said it because Jongdae had talked about it, leaving the words in his head like seeds, but mostly he said it was it was true.

"Oh," Kyungsoo said again.

"I'm really sorry I looked at your Elle spread," Chanyeol said, words rattling out of him. "I don't know, I thought you were joking or something, the photos—" He laughed, hating himself. Tipped his head back and groaned up to the ceiling, to heaven, to God, in a futile search for deliverance. "You look good," he said finally. "The photos came out really good."

Kyungsoo looked almost like he was made out of stone, face drawn and gray. He was in one of Chanyeol's old t-shirts (and christ, the collar was wide enough that it was about one inch away from slipping off one of Kyungsoo's narrow shoulders), some pajama pants that were as soft as they were ancient, feet swimming in the thick wool socks that Kyungsoo always wore during the winter.

Chanyeol didn't like those photos at all except for in every way possible. The photos were beautiful and he was beautiful and so it all made sense, but in real life... in real life he smiled and laughed at Chanyeol's jokes and it wasn't acting. It wasn't fake.

"Great," Kyungsoo said. He licked his lips awkwardly, then stepped back. "Did you wanna come in?"

"Yeah," Chanyeol said.

 

Kyungsoo had a cat.

It wasn't just any cat, of course - you'd never catch someone like Kyungsoo with an ordinary cat - it was a Russian Blue, sleek and perfect with green eyes as big as plates, reflective and terrifying in the dead of night. The cat was named Dracula, and he was the nicest cat Chanyeol had ever met in his life.

"I've got benadryl," Kyungsoo was saying, kitchen cabinets clattering.

"I don't feel like falling asleep just yet." Chanyeol stood there, Dracula purring like a lawn mower engine in his arms, leaning back against the counter as the cat investigated his entire face. "I'll be fine for a few hours, don't worry." (He could already feel the hives forming.) "Hey—"

"Go sit down and pick out a movie," Kyungsoo interrupted. He looked tired, messed up, messed up hair and shadows under his eyes so dark they almost looked like bruises. "You want wine?"

"Just water," Chanyeol said, tipping over to force Dracula out of his arms and onto the floor. ( _How very dare you,_ Dracula yowled. _A plague upon your house._ ) He didn't need any help to get his own water in Kyungsoo's flat; both of their mothers had trained them not to even ask. "How are things?

Kyungsoo laughed - breathy, nihilistic - but didn't hesitate even slightly as he continued twisting the corkscrew down as far as it would go. "I think I bit off more than I can chew. Junmyeon even told me this would happen, but I—"

"You should know better than to ignore your agent by now, man. And what do you mean, you 'bit off more than you could chew?'"

"Nothing," Kyungsoo said. A quick grunt of effort as he finally managed to pop the cork out. "I've just been working too much. It's fine. When this contract is up I think I need to take a sabbatical or something." He paused, almost thoughtfully, in the middle of pouring himself a far too full glass of shiraz. "Maybe I'll actually do something fun."

"So hanging out with me," Chanyeol said, filling a glass (it was one of Kyungsoo's vintage Star Wars glasses, the best one, the one with Leia on it) and settling just behind Kyungsoo's right shoulder, leaning against the counter with one hip and hanging over his best friend with something not unlike possessiveness. "That's what you find fun, right?"

"It's cute that you think I enjoy hanging out with you." Kyungsoo stoppered the bottle again and picked up his glass with an almost dazed expression of relief. "I don't know."

"Um, ow?"

"Joking," Kyungsoo said, slipping easily out from under Chanyeol's shadow and toward the living room, Dracula chirping and twisting around his ankles as he walked. "You never picked out a movie."

"Well maybe I like talking to you," Chanyeol shot back, flopping down onto Kyungsoo's infinitely comfortable couch and spilling some water on himself in the process. "You ever think of that?"

"Daydream about it," Kyungsoo deadpanned, sitting down on the opposite end of the couch and curling his legs under, Dracula hopping up to settle territorially in the curve of his person's lap. "What was that song you were working on the other day?"

Caught.

"What song?" Chanyeol asked, feigning innocence and curiosity like his life depended on it. "It was probably one of the same tracks I've been—"

"No," Kyungsoo interrupted. (His interruptions always managed to simply slide into the conversation, finding near non-existent cracks and spaces and slipping in like he'd always been there. Chanyeol loved to hate it and hated to love it.) "It wasn't anything I've heard before. You've never worked with that vocalist before."

"What vocalist?" He was being stupid now.

"I don't know." When Chanyeol looked up Kyungsoo looked distracted, sleepy, absent-mindedly scritching Dracula's ears as he stared unseeing into his wine glass. It was the look he got when he was shuffling through his memory banks like a librarian, opening his mouth to sing, "'You're different from the other girls, I'm sure you must hear you're so special—'"

"Freaks me out sometimes how you can just remember shit word-perfect like that," Chanyeol mumbled into his water. "It's just the demo for something. It's not mine."

Kyungsoo shot him a dead-eyed look, tipping his glass to take a long drink of wine. "Sure," he said.

"You calling me a liar?"

"Never said that." Kyungsoo wriggled a little, settling down into the soft leather of the corner of the couch. "Why are you here, Chanyeol-ah?"

"I wanted to apologize," Chanyeol said, "and I miss you."

"You keep saying that."

"It keeps being true."

When Chanyeol glanced up Kyungsoo was still. Calm, like the surface of a pond suddenly devoid of fish.

"I miss you," Chanyeol said.

Kyungsoo shrugged, but didn’t look at him. "It's not like I'm going anywhere."

"I miss you," Chanyeol said for, the third time. He thought about Kyungsoo just up and disappearing one day. (He thought about all the times Kyungsoo had managed to disappear without actually leaving, the way he could almost feel him slipping away.) "What's going on?"

"Do you ever wish we could switch?" Kyungsoo looked almost as surprised by what he'd said as Chanyeol felt. "I don't mean—"

"Like so you're the tall one?" Chanyeol inclined his head to look Kyungsoo in the eye, but Kyungsoo just glanced away from him, eyes flickering from Chanyeol's hands, to his knees, to Dracula. "Something else."

Kyungsoo opened his mouth. Kyungsoo closed his mouth. Kyungsoo appeared caught, suddenly and unexpectedly, in a psychological civil war. "Have you ever seen Singing in the Rain?" he asked, eventually.

"Yeah." Chanyeol hesitated. "I mean, like - it was ages ago. I don't really remember much."

"There's this girl whose job it is to be the voice of this famous actress, like when silent movies moved over and talkies came in and everybody had to adjust? because this actress is really famous and they want to keep putting her in movies, but her voice sucks."

"Definitely," Chanyeol said, mind blank. "Yeah, I remember that."

"She really wants to be known for her own voice," Kyungsoo says. "And the protagonists set up this sneaky way to expose the actress and get their friend the attention she deserves."

"That's nice."

"No," Kyungsoo said. "I'd hate that." He brought the glass of wine up to his mouth before hesitating. "Can we just watch a movie? And not talk?" He smiled and god, he just looked so tired. "I've been talking nonstop for days."

"Somebody else's words, though."

"Better than mine."

"Doubt it," Chanyeol said, grabbing the remote control off of the coffee table.

It was less than an hour when Chanyeol glanced over only to find Kyungsoo passed out cold, his empty wine glass on the side table behind him and Dracula settled heavy and content in his arms. He looked small all the time but sometimes he was just small - thin legs tangling together, narrow shoulders curled in around his cat, the way his lips were only just slightly parted. He always looked so small and narrow and vulnerable, withdrawing into himself, drinking half a bottle of wine by himself and not wanting to talk about anything.

Chanyeol sat on the couch and wished he hadn't put on Suicide Squad and thought about Kyungsoo - Kyungsoo and that girl from the movie, the one whose name nobody knew.

 

* * *

**찬열**  
I don't know  
He just talked about Singing in the Rain  
Then fell asleep during most obnoxious scene in Suicide Squad

**종대**  
Can you narrow it down a little?

**찬열**  
Listen

**종대**  
Okay, okay...  
What does he want to sing in the rain for?

**찬열**  
No, the movie  
Singing in the Rain  
It's a classic

**종대**  
Ohh  
Got it. Okay. I haven't seen that in years.  
What about it?

**찬열**  
I think he's burning out

**종대**  
You say that every six months.

**찬열**  
I know  
And he's always fine after a week off  
But it feels different this time.

**종대**  
You can always text me if you need something.

**찬열**  
I know

**종대**  
But keep in mind that when it comes to Kyungsoo, you're probably the person who knows best.

**찬열**  
Right, but what if I need to be enabled

**종대**  
Asshole.  
I'm at work, stop bothering me.


	9. Chapter 9

**경수**  
  
i think your mom is going through old photos

**찬열**  
Don't you already have that one?

**경수**  
i haven't seen it in a while

**찬열**  
I'm adorable

**경수**  
hey, are you up for getting dinner?

**찬열**  
No  
I'm stuck in the studio for a few more hours

**경수**  
oh  
that's fine

**찬열**  
Can I text you if I'm done by like 9 or something?  
I want to see you  
We could get drinks

**경수**  
yeah  
text me if you're done by midnight  
:)

**찬열**  
Gotta get back  
❤

**경수**  
❤


	10. Chapter 10

Chanyeol didn't finish up by nine. Or ten. Or eleven. It was a little past midnight when he finally stepped over the threshold of his apartment, but he knew instinctively what was happening when he kicked his shoes off and stepped up into the main room and the lights in the kitchen were mysteriously turned on.

"Sorry," Chanyeol said, shrugging out of his jacket and laying it over the back of the couch next to Kyungsoo, curled up around a bowl of popcorn. "We can still go out if you want."

"I've already got my shoes off," Kyungsoo said back, wobbling his head like it was a shrug and gathering another handful of popcorn. "It's too late. You're stuck with me."

Chanyeol stepped on his socks to pull them off before flopping down on the couch, swinging his legs over the arm and shoving his head onto Kyungsoo's lap, forcing the popcorn out of its former seat. "Oh yeah?" He reached up and ruffled Kyungsoo's hair. "You don't get it - I'm not locked up in here with you. You're locked up in here with me."

"Stop," Kyungsoo sputtered, trying to arch out of Chanyeol's reach. "Oh my god, Chanyeol, you've got subway all over you, stop trying to touch my face and go wash your hands. God you're worse than Dracula—"

"I wasn't expecting you to show up," Chanyeol interrupted, compromising and resting his hands on his stomach instead. "I figured when I texted you that you'd just go to bed or something. What was it? Did you miss me?"

"Yeah," said Kyungsoo.

"I guess," said Kyungsoo.

"Something like that," said Kyungsoo.

Chanyeol watched him for a moment, the way he stuffed popcorn in his mouth almost like he was trying to shut himself up. "You know I like you, right?" Kyungsoo didn't blink. Didn't look at him. (Sometimes having a decorated actor as a best friend was really annoying. He was too good at blanking out.) "Because sometimes it feels like you think I don't. Or that, like, I'm going to stop liking you any minute."

"I'm a mess," Kyungsoo said.

"You're my mess."

"Don't be stupid."

"When," Chanyeol said, sitting up, "have I ever not been stupid? That's one of my primary defining characteristics. When people think about me they think about my height, my ears, and how I'm always the class clown. Calling me stupid isn't new, Kyungsoo. You're my best friend, you should know this by now."

"You have a lot of friends, that's not - ow, Chanyeol, fuck, stop flicking me—"

"Only when you admit that you're my best friend," Chanyeol said, relentless. "I'm gonna start tickling next."

"I'll vomit popcorn all over you," Kyungsoo stuttered out, dodging and blocking Chanyeol's hands. "See if I don't."

"Admit it."

"You're my best friend," Kyungsoo said. "Why does it matter?"

"Because sometimes you wonder if anybody actually likes you," Chanyeol said, "and I'm gonna give you sixteen swirlies if you ever wonder that about me."

"What about Jimin?" A brief pause before his eyes came up, big and round and somehow both the void of space as well as a galaxy of stars. His lips parted, pursed just slightly in the shape of a question. His heart-shaped mouth, the line of his jaw, the way he'd let his hair get long since shooting had wrapped up so that now it brushed the tips of his ears.

"I want to show you something," Chanyeol said. He was standing up, tugging the popcorn bowl gently out of Kyungsoo's hands, pulling him up and across the living room, past the kitchen, down the hall, last door on the left, into his office. "Hold on, it's - sorry I have to drive for a minute I have way too many tabs open—"

Kyungsoo pointed at something flickering across the screen as the programs closed one by one. "What's that one?"

"Nothing," Chanyeol said, ears hot.

"I think I saw a dick," Kyungsoo said back, hanging over Chanyeol's shoulder and watching the screen. "Did you drag me in here to watch gay porn with you?"

"Why?" Chanyeol turned to look at him but Kyungsoo's face was so close, chin almost hooked over his shoulder, and when Kyungsoo turned to look back their noses nearly brushed together. "You wanna?"

"Just show me what you were gonna show me," Kyungsoo said, voice deep and soft and caught in his throat as he broke first, pulling back and away from Chanyeol's face. (Their mouths had been so close together. Kyungsoo was pink now, the tips of his ears hot and red, but Chanyeol couldn't find it in himself to be embarrassed.) "Stop being stupid."

"We've been over this," Chanyeol sang, pulling up the command line. "Can't stop won't stop. Remember a while ago when you came over and I was working on something?"

"Right," Kyungsoo said. He was out of Chanyeol's line of sight now, his voice a practiced deadpan, but Chanyeol had known him for ten years and there was something there. "Let me guess, you lied when you said it wasn't yours."

"It wasn't." Cubase finally opened. The waveforms were comforting, somehow. Like he was at home. "It kind of is now though. Here, sit down."

Kyungsoo always looked kind of silly in Chanyeol's massive headphones - sometimes Chanyeol would address him as Princess Leia, secure in the knowledge that Kyungsoo couldn't hear shit under the thick padding - and this time was no exception. But it was a cute silly, not a stupid silly, and Chanyeol almost told him so before remembering that he didn't want Kyungsoo to punch him in the ribs and ruin the mood.

The song started. For a few seconds there was silence outside of the space between Chanyeol's oversized headphones and Kyungsoo's eardrums. "What is this?" he asked, voice a little bit louder than necessary. "It's good. Is this that one vocalist?"

Kyungsoo couldn't hear him through the headphones so Chanyeol squeezed his left shoulder in a gentle affirmative. It was something they'd started doing a while ago, maybe all the way back in high school when Chanyeol was really starting to get the equipment he needed to do what he wanted. Left shoulder meant yes, right shoulder meant no. Its history was murky but the system remained the same after all these years.

A moment - Kyungsoo was breathing normally until suddenly he stopped, holding his breath like he was watching a basketball game counting down to its final seconds. "Is this you?" he whispered.

Chanyeol squeezed his best friend's left shoulder and after that they were quiet, just the dampened sound of breathing within a sound-proofed space, quiet and transfixed until the waveforms ran out and the play button clicked itself off and then for just a few seconds more after that.

Kyungsoo pulled the headphones off slowly, shaking his head to expel that static that had gotten caught in his hair. "It's good," he said. He didn't look up to meet Chanyeol's eye. "You're doing collaborations as a vocalist?"

"It's a demo," Chanyeol said.

"It's good," Kyungsoo said again, setting the headphones down on the desk with careful hands. "You - this sounds good."

"It's sort of for you," said Chanyeol. He leaned back against a work table, kicking his legs out to perch precariously on the edge. "I mean - not in a weird way, just—" Kyungsoo still wasn't looking at him, fists clenched on his knees and back slightly hunched. "—you're my best friend, Kyungsoo."

"What's that supposed to mean," Kyungsoo mumbled under his breath, rubbing his face with his cuff. (He was wearing one of Chanyeol's sweatshirts, one of the ones that were too big on him and on Kyungsoo looked almost like a dress.) He stood up, eyes bleary. "What about Jimin? What about Jongdae?"

Chanyeol pushed off of the table and stepped forward to steady Kyungsoo with a hand. "What about them?"

"I can't do stuff," Kyungsoo said, the words tumbling from his mouth like marbles pouring from a bowl. "I ruin parties and I, you're always doing something with somebody, or working, or - I don't know. You deserve better," he said. "You deserve a better best friend. That's all."

He'd have escaped then if Chanyeol's arms weren't so long, his reflexes so quick, but instead Chanyeol caught his arm to slow him down. "That's not how it works," he said, stuttering over the words. "God damn it, Kyungsoo, we've been friends for ten years, I'm not like the people who praise you in interviews and then go write unsubstantiated bullshit about who you're dating, or - or your sexuality, I don't know, I know I'm only one person but I love you because you're you."

"I care about you," Chanyeol said. "I care about you because you're you."

"I don't know," Chanyeol said.

"I love you," Chanyeol said.

Kyungsoo didn't say anything, just looked down at Chanyeol's long, broad hand wrapped around his not-insignificantly-sized bicep. His eyes were huge but the rest of his face was blank. (Sometimes Chanyeol would remember that Kyungsoo's magical ability to look absolutely blank wasn't a product of his acting training. He remembers Kyungsoo looking out the window of the car in the hot steady thrum of a late summer evening just after the sun has set. He remembers asking him if he was okay. He remembers Kyungsoo turning to look at him, still blank - until his face cracked easily into that incredible heart-shaped smile and he said, "I think I might be the happiest I've ever been.")

He didn't say anything, just looked up into Chanyeol's face with those huge dark eyes and thick straight eyelashes and those heart-shaped lips just barely parted like he was about to ask a question but then hesitated. "Oh," he said. "How - how much?"

"Enough to ask Jongdae for advice on how to help you get out of your funk," Chanyeol said. "I put myself within range of the most savage person I know who isn't you. That's how much I love you. You're my best friend."

"Oh," Kyungsoo said again, quieter this time. "Yeah, you're my best friend too. You - what did Jongdae say?"

"Mostly that I'm the one who knows you best." Kyungsoo snorted. "Oh c'mon, lemme have this one thing."

"Okay," Kyungsoo said, a hint of laughter caught in his voice. "Okay." Kyungsoo, smiling and stepping just slightly closer. "You're the one who knows me the best." Kyungsoo, looking up into his face with a curious expression that Chanyeol wasn't sure he'd ever seen. It looked strangely familiar but he couldn't remember a time when Kyungsoo had looked at him like that. "Hey."

Chanyeol looked down into Kyungsoo's pink-tinged face, catching the dark and shimmer of Kyungsoo's eyes, catching the gentle curve and swoop of his cupid's bow, the lines on his lips that meant he hadn't been drinking enough water.

"Hi," somebody said. (After a second Chanyeol realized that he'd been the one who'd said it.) "Hey," Chanyeol said.

"I love you too," said Kyungsoo.

Kyungsoo loved him back and it was late and Chanyeol felt unfathomably slow-witted and Kyungsoo had said he loved him back. Chanyeol had said "I care about you" but that was a lie and he'd fixed it, but only halfway. There was still distance in Kyungsoo's eyes.

"I love you," Chanyeol said, and closed that distance between them once and for all.

At first Kyungsoo froze, shock or fear or something like that, and Chanyeol tried to back up and apologize and call Kyungsoo a cab and never talk to him again—

Kyungsoo moved like they'd done this a thousand times, settling close against Chanyeol's chest and trembling a little when Chanyeol slipped his tongue past the soft non-barrier of Kyungsoo's lips. Trembling a little, gasping into Chanyeol's mouth, reaching up to hook hands over his shoulders to push him back against a table and pull him down and kiss him even deeper.

He had seen that look on Kyungsoo before, it had just been in a movie. It had been a confession scene, Kyungsoo playing some bumbling protagonist head over heels for a girl far too good for him. He'd looked at her with that face and if Chanyeol hadn't been rooting for his character already just by virtue of him being played by his best friend he would have started rooting for him then.

(Later it'll occur to Chanyeol that maybe it was him who was the bumbling protagonist and Kyungsoo far too good for him, his best friend slipping gently out of his league almost immediately after kissing him.)

It felt like hours. (It felt like barely even half a second.) Kyungsoo pulled back, sucking in a shaking breath. His grip on Chanyeol's shoulders loosened, his body tensed under Chanyeol's hands, he was getting all warmed up to escape—

"I wanna kiss you again," Chanyeol said, breathless

The look Kyungsoo gave him then, Chanyeol knew for sure that it was a new one. He'd never seen it, not even in a movie or a tv show or a cf; Kyungsoo had so many faces and Chanyeol was so sure he'd memorized every single one (wow, he really should have clued in to this crush earlier, huh) but Kyungsoo was Kyungsoo. Everything would be the same for ages before Kyungsoo was very suddenly different than he'd been before, and now Kyungsoo had a new look on his face that, Chanyeol realized, had only ever been directed at him.

"Okay," Kyungsoo said, voice rough and tight in his throat. "Yeah, I - I guess. Okay."

"Okay," Chanyeol said back, leaning back against the work table and looping his arms around Kyungsoo's narrow waist, pulling him in close, Kyungsoo's hips slotting perfectly between his legs. All of it was strange and new and alien and... and comfortable. Familiar. So real and perfect that Chanyeol wondered if there had ever been anything that made more sense than this.

After what felt like no time at all Kyungsoo pulled away, eyes fixed on the graphic on Chanyeol's t-shirt rather than Chanyeol's face. "Um," he said, brushing at Chanyeol's shoulders like they'd been caught in the snow, cheeks pink and lips spit-slick and bitten. "Um, so... so you like guys? I thought you were straight?"

"I think what I like is you," Chanyeol said, even though his self-awareness was screaming in the back of his head about how cheesy it was, and then he said, "I think I'd love you if you were a soap dish."

"That's stupid," Kyungsoo said quietly. His eyes flickered up, glancing awkwardly from Chanyeol's mouth to his nose to his hair before finally settling on a point just past Chanyeol's left ear. "I'm not a soap dish. I'm - you—" He blinked and Chanyeol felt his heart skip a beat because god he was beautiful, god he was perfect, god, god, the way his round eyes narrowed and widened and the way his mouth moved around the words he spoke and his voice (his _voice_ ), low and thick and sweet and sour like orange chocolate—

Then Kyungsoo said, "You love me?"

The first option was to correct himself. The second option was to wave it off. The third option...

"Yeah," said Chanyeol. "I think so."

"Oh," said Kyungsoo.

"Weird," said Kyungsoo.

"I think I should go home," said Kyungsoo, fumbling a little as he tripped backwards toward the door. "I'll - I'll text you, okay?"

 

* * *

**종대**  
What the fuck did you do

**찬열**  
Kissed him

**종대**  
Jesus Christ

**찬열**  
Might have told him that I love him

**종대**  
Oh my God.

**찬열**  
He left really fast and our friendship is over  
It's fine  
I'm fine  
Everything's fine

**종대**  
Minseok is trying to keep him on the phone.

**찬열**  
What is he saying?

**종대**  
He's going on hiatus

**찬열**  
Well good, that's what Junmyeon keeps telling him to do

**종대**  
And on vacation.  
He's at the airport, Minseok says  
Chanyeol?  
Don't tell me you're going after him.  
God damn it


	11. Chapter 11

When Chanyeol pulled up to the curb in the departures area of the Incheon International Airport the crowds of fansites were already dwindling, talking animatedly over DSLRs as they dispersed. (His phone had already started buzzing with twitter notifications, his favorite fansites posting grainy previews of Kyungsoo walking across the crosswalk and standing at various counters with his chin down and his hands behind his back and his thick, strong legs locked at the knee in the absent-minded way that only Kyungsoo seemed able to achieve.

He almost dinged the door of his ferrari in his rush to get out and he didn't even care, scrambling to unfold himself out of the car and onto the concrete walkway running along the bank of windows looking into the airport lobby, catching his foot at the wrong time and just barely managing to catch himself before faceplanting on the pavement.

"Hi," he said breathlessly, jogging up to his favorite fansite admin, "I love your work. Do you know where he went?"

She eyed him, which he really should have expected, looking him up and down suspiciously as if systematically filing his personal details away for later use. "Who do you mean?" she asked, voice slow and intrigued.

"Do Kyungsoo," Chanyeol said, out of breath and tipped over, hands on his knees to keep himself from falling over. "Don't make it weird. Do you know where he went?"

"He's already gone," she said. "You're him, aren't you? You're Kyungsoo's lover."

A spike of panic shot through him like a bullet, if bullets were somehow also fireworks and a bolt of lightning simultaneously. (Lover? Was he Kyungsoo's lover? That was such a weirdly archaic term for oh god, he was absolutely Kyungsoo's lover oh god. Fuck.)

"Wha?" Chanyeol said, eloquence personified.

"He goes everywhere with you," she said, waving a hand dismissively. "You're in about 75% of his candid shots. Also you're his type."

"His type," Chanyeol said, feeling a little light-headed.

"Wu Yifan," she said, counting off on her fingers, "Lee Kwangsoo, Oh Sehun—"

"It wasn't like that," Chanyeol interrupted, gut twisting, "he - none of them were even - what, what do you mean I'm his type?"

"You're tall and gangly and you look like a great dane puppy," she said. "Kyungsoo's radar for big men is legendary. How do you not know this?"

(Denial, Chanyeol thought quietly to himself.) "I have to go," he said out loud, his brain kicking back in to remind him why he was actually here. "Thanks. Keep up the, uh, the good work." He gave her a double thumbs up and then promptly fled.

 

 

"Kim residence," Jongdae sang over the phone, "here to begrudgingly supply advice of all types, how can we—"

"Did he tell you where he went?"

"That's - wait, what's that sound? Chanyeol are you—"

"I'm at the airport," Chanyeol said. "Grabbed my passport on the way out the door. Do you know where he went?"

"Chanyeol, don't be stupid." It was Minseok this time, quiet, rough voice soothing and dangerous at the same time. "Bolting off after him isn't—"

"Hyung-nim I'm really sorry but I just need to know where he went before his flight takes off," Chanyeol rattled off, words spilling out of him like marbles from a bowl. "I'm sorry for interrupting—"

"Go home," Minseok said. It was kind, not annoyed, but it still cut like a knife.

"I can't," Chanyeol said, "my best friend is - I fucked up, hyung—"

"Probably less than you think you did," Minseok said, slow and thoughtful. "But you can only start to unfuck it if you go home."

"That doesn't make any sense," Chanyeol stuttered into the phone, "hyung, that - that doesn't make any sense."

"Go home," Minseok said one more time. "You'll be glad you did."

"Hyung—" The line went dead and Chanyeol was already shouting some very rude things in his head.

(He bought a plane ticket just to get past security, but couldn't find Kyungsoo at any of the gates.)

 

 

It was way past 5am before Chanyeol finally took Minseok's advice and went home, hands shaking, eyes burning. He'd spent hours drunk on hope and now he was dealing with the aftermath, disappointment and self-loathing and heartbreak all wrapped up into a thick stone in the pit of his stomach as he drove home through mostly empty streets.

He drove slow, creeping up to stale green lights to catch the red. He let himself get turned around on the freeway. He was distracted. (He was dreading it, arriving back home. If he made it all the way back home without Kyungsoo he'd have lost the only thing he'd ever cared enough to fight for.)

He got home eventually, sun already burning over the east horizon before he pulled into the parking garage. He sat in his car for a little while, staring at his phone until it flickered the low battery notification at him almost as though it was chiding him for being avoidant.

Elevators had always seemed like a different dimension early in the morning, a little pocket of consistency through the passing of hours and days and seasons. The only hint of the world outside was what he'd brought in with him, a bite of winter air or the gently dissipating scent of cherry blossoms, and just now the elevator was filled with the scent of morning, the dust collected overnight swirling in the air in time with the air vents, and Chanyeol tried to ignore it.

When he got to his door he keyed in Kyungsoo's birthday and the lock sang, letting him in. (Part of him wanted to change it. Most of him knew that he wouldn't be able to.) He kicked his shoes off with his eyes closed, left his jacket on the floor of the entryway, his shirt over the back of a chair, his socks on the floor in the hallway.

There was a light on in his bedroom.

The knot in his stomach throbbed and he felt suddenly cold and exposed in just his jeans. He couldn't remember if the light had been on when he'd left and he was too sick on hope not to wonder. Light shone under the door and Chanyeol stood there for a moment, hand on the doorknob and heart in his throat.

He almost couldn't bring himself to push the door open, as though sleeping on the couch would create some sort of Schrodinger's Kyungsoo situation in which Chanyeol could just pretend indefinitely that Kyungsoo was behind his bedroom door. But it was only almost, and he held his breath as the knob turned under his hand.

The light was on in his bedroom because Kyungsoo was lying there on his bed, sprawled out with a book open on his lap but still somehow taking up hardly any of the king-sized space.

The knot in the pit of Chanyeol's stomach curled open gently, like a flower in the morning, and he took a shuddering step forward. It felt like if he made any sudden movements the bubble might burst and he'd find himself kicked back out into the cold like the little matchgirl. (Chanyeol was just barely self-aware enough to realize how irrational he was being, but he didn't do very well at caring about it. Yes, like the little matchgirl.)

Kyungsoo had always always been beautiful. They'd had sleepovers when they were kids, and Chanyeol liked to watch him sleep, (only realizing later how creepy it was), finding something calming and comforting in the way Kyungsoo's dark, thick eyelashes lay over the sweet brushed brass of his cheeks. Sometimes hints of purple and blue stained the inner corners of his eyes, more and more frequently as they got older and went from junior high to high school to Juilliard. They were dark today, stark against his uncharacteristically pale greenish skin, and the book open in his lap was the yearbook from their senior year in high school.

The page his hand was limply holding open was scattered with photos of their drama club: the all-male production of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night with Chanyeol as Viola and Kyungsoo as the Duke; Chanyeol bent over a mixing board during their winter musical; Kyungsoo smeared with surprisingly elaborate blue face paint for Baekhyun's ill-fated Avatar adaptation. They were all young and awkward, too many elbows and not enough sense. Chanyeol, considered the most eligible bachelor at their high school, was made almost entirely from ears, bowed legs, and yaoi hands. Kyungsoo had been about as well built as a paper cut out, thin arms and thin legs and hands so stupidly small that Chanyeol could hold both in one of his own.

Kyungsoo lay on Chanyeol's bed, beautiful, nothing at all like the Kyungsoo on the pages on the yearbook. He'd been as white as a dead fish back in highschool, spending all his free time in dark movie theaters sucking down coke and eating his weight in nachos, pale and thin like frosted glass, all round wire-framed glasses and no-nonsense undercuts and a look that seemed to pierce right down to the soul. Now he was thick and golden like cool honey, hair changing every month for each new role, broad square palms and broad square shoulders and broad and square and so small and delicate sometimes Chanyeol was scared of breaking him.

"Well, shit," Chanyeol mumbled under his breath. Here he was, watching his best friend sleep, studying his features like a lovesick freak. Here he was, and Kyungsoo too.

Chanyeol sat down on the bed next to Kyungsoo's knees, bumped up to the very very edge for the want of space. He folded his hands together and looked at them for a while. He took a few deep, long breaths. He sat upright.

"Hey," Chanyeol said, nudging at Kyungsoo's shoulder. "Soo-yah. You fell asleep."

Kyungsoo squinched up his face, still mostly asleep, and rolled away from Chanyeol's reach.

"Hey," Chanyeol said, a little bit louder this time. "You fell asleep."

"Tired," Kyungsoo groaned, voice muffled in the blanket. He didn't need to be very awake at all to respond like that so Chanyeol nudged him some more.

"Kyungsoo-yah," Chanyeol said, pressing his mouth even closer to Kyungsoo's only available ear. "How long have you been asleep here?"

"Din fall'sleep," Kyungsoo sighed. Then he squinted, cracking one eye open blearily to stare at the crush of the pillow and blanket under his cheek. "Wha?"

"You fell asleep," Chanyeol said. (Was this some alternate reality? Somewhere that it was Kyungsoo who was unbuttoned and confused instead of him. For once Chanyeol felt like he might have the upper hand, a strange and unfamiliar sensation.) "It's okay. I can let you go back to sleep."

"Yeol," Kyungsoo croaked, rolling back over sleepily but with a steadily growing urgency, "Chanyeol, I - where were you? I waited for you," he sighed, letting his head fall back against the pillow, eyes fluttering shut. "Long time."

"You were waiting for me?" Christ. "I was looking for you. At the airport. Why did you come back?"

"Left my passport at home." Of course. He'd left his passport at home. Chanyeol had stalked the terminals for hours and Kyungsoo had left his passport at home.

"I guess I can't complain," Chanyeol mumbled, reaching out despite himself to brush Kyungsoo's bangs out of his eyes. (How could he complain, with Kyungsoo half asleep in his bed?) "Are you okay?"

This time when Kyungsoo opened his eyes they seemed just a little bit clearer, a little less sleepy, a little more panicked. "Oh god," he said, shuffling back to press himself against the headboard, wide eyes flickering up and down and up (and down, Chanyeol couldn't help but notice, eyes caught on the curve of his chest). "Shit," he said, scrambling now, hands coming up to ruffle his hair and feel for his glasses and run both hands over his shoulders as though he were cold. "How long have I—"

"I've been trying to figure that out," Chanyeol confessed. "The sun's coming up, if that helps."

"Why aren't you wearing a shirt," Kyungsoo muttered under his breath, holding his head in both hands. "I'm awake, you should be wearing a shirt."

"Excuse me?"

"Nothing."

"You wanna talk about it?"

"No," Kyungsoo said decisively, staring down at his hands now tucked awkwardly in his lap. "I don't know. Why did you have to do that?" Chanyeol didn't have to ask what _that_ was, because it was the kiss. "Everything has been - it's all great, why—"

"Nothing's been great," Chanyeol interrupted, letting frustration flood his words, "you've been anxious and depressed and secretive, what about that is great?"

"I've been handling it," Kyungsoo said. "Chanyeol, this..." He trailed off, but Chanyeol waited for him anyway. (It was a trick he'd actually picked up from Kyungsoo himself; the old Stay Silent To Force One-Sided Conversation gambit.) "Did you mean it?" he asked finally, voice small.

He was tired, exhausted and heavy, and it was an accident the way he tipped over and caught his weight over Kyungsoo's hips. "Did I mean what?" he asked, looking down at his best friend.

"When you said you loved me," Kyungsoo said, (stuttered), blushing almost imperceptibly. He jerked his head away, leaning back against the headboard to keep out of Chanyeol's space as much as he could. "I - that's stupid, forget it."

"Did you mean it?" Chanyeol asked. "When you said you loved me?"

Kyungsoo looked up at for a second, wide-eyed and baffled. "Did I... you're asking if _I_ meant it...?"

"Well," Chanyeol said, feeling his cheeks burn pink from the inside out, "yeah, I guess."

Kyungsoo laughed, (a quick cough that seemed just barely on this side of hysterical), and flopped down until he was flat on his back on the mattress. "Pinch me," he said. "I - ow, fuck—"

"Hey, you told me to." Chanyeol arched over him, hands bracketing Kyungsoo's head. "Did you mean it?"

Kyungsoo sucked in a quick, sharp breath, (the sort of inhale you hear right before someone says something, or the quick gasps between lines in a song), slipped one hand cautiously over the back of Chanyeol's neck to tug him downward (shy, shy) and press the lightest kiss at the corner of his lips.

Chanyeol groaned against Kyungsoo's mouth, crawling up on the bed to settle finally with his elbows on the mattress and Kyungsoo's arms looped around his shoulders and one of Kyungsoo's thick action star thighs between his own. They'd kissed before (had it only been a few hours ago?) but it had been awkward, a stilted affair with too much tension and nervous energy. It had been amazing, but this time kissing Kyungsoo felt a little like believing in God.

"Hey one of your fans told me I was your type," Chanyeol said, pulling away. "Is that true? Am I your type? Also were you and Yifan ever—"

"You stopped to ask me that," Kyungsoo said, disbelief on his face. "Are you stalking my fans?"

"My favorite fansite admin was at the airport when I got there," Chanyeol said, pushing up onto his hands, "she said that I'm your lover. Also that I'm your type."

"Now I'm curious what my type is," Kyungsoo said, "and what do you mean your favorite fansite admin? And my _lover_?" He pulled a face that was half ambivalence and half confusion. “What a weirdly archaic way to say that.”

"Apparently your type is tall, gangly, and looks kind of like a puppy," Chanyeol parroted. "So is she wrong, or...?"

"How about this," Kyungsoo interrupted, pulling Chanyeol down to lie on the mattress next to him, "We talk about everything later."

"Everything?"

"Shush," Kyungsoo whispered, moving so he was the one hanging over Chanyeol rather than the other way around. "Later."

"You can't just kiss me whenever you don't want to talk about your feelings," Chanyeol said.

It was quiet enough in Chanyeol's bedroom that he could hear it, the exact moment their lips met. The moment Kyungsoo pulled back just a little, cautious. The moment he came back. He laughed - that one laugh, the one that took him over and curled him up - until Chanyeol pulled him down to keep kissing him.

"Watch me," Kyungsoo said against his mouth.

 

 

"What do you mean, my fansites were at the airport? When did you go to the airport?"

"Shush. You said that we're gonna talk about everything later."


	12. same age again (again, again)

Not Quite A Year Later

* * *

 

 

Dracula was ready and waiting for him in the tiled foyer just beyond Kyungsoo's front door, chirping and curling dangerously around Chanyeol's ankles like a cat who'd never been loved in his entire life rather than a little bratty whiner who got everything he wanted. "I know you're not hungry," Chanyeol whispered to him, kneeling in order to struggle out of his shoes without being a victim of manslaughter by cat. Dracula took the opportunity to put his front paws up on Chanyeol's thigh and rub his gray face almost viciously on Chanyeol's arm. "Stop it. I personally fed you only hours ago." In response Dracula just stared up into his eyes and gave him a slow blink of feline affection, beginning to knead gently on his leg.

Chanyeol knew that he had to stay strong.

 

"Don't tell your dad," Chanyeol whispered to the cat, squatting low on the kitchen floor with a little piece of cheese in his fingers. "You and I both know you're not supposed to have this."

Dracula chose to stay silent, (a wise choice), and just ate the cheese.

"We agreed," Chanyeol said, standing up. "I expect you to hold up your end of the bargain. Understand?"

The cat licked his lips almost menacingly, nose already perked for more illicit early morning snacks.

"Good," Chanyeol said. He felt as though he'd lost - what, he couldn't even begin to fathom, but whatever it was he was the loser and Dracula was the winner.

Chanyeol had never been very good at secrets, (infamous for the time when a much younger version of himself had arrived back home after going Christmas shopping with his dad and immediately yelled, "YURA I GOT YOU A H.O.T CASSETTE" before he even had on his house slippers), but he liked to think he was getting better at it. He'd kept this a secret from Kyungsoo for over a week, for example, and keeping a secret from Kyungsoo was basically like trying to walk into the Louvre and then walk back out again with the Mona Lisa without being noticed. Not, of course, because Kyungsoo was particularly observant, but rather because Chanyeol was himself - himself being someone who's never been able to keep a secret, especially from the person he was in love with.

(Gross, Chanyeol thought to himself.)

But he'd pulled it off, and now was in Kyungsoo's kitchen in the small hours of the morning (Kyungsoo's birthday morning) and he had a plan and a menu and every possible ingredient and somehow he'd managed to actually pull it off. Snuck right out of the Louvre with a Da Vinci without attracting even the hint of suspicion.

The light flickered on. "Are you feeding human food to my cat?" asked Kyungsoo, voice slurred with sleep. "I didn't expect you to show up for another hour at least."

"You knew," Chanyeol gasped, horrified, standing there with a bundle of green onions in one hand and a carton of milk in the other. "Damn it—"

Kyungsoo shuffled in close, folding his arms around Chanyeol's waist and gently resting his temple on Chanyeol's chest. "It's cute that you think you can keep a secret. Remember last night, when you said you'd see me in the morning?"

"Damn it," Chanyeol said again. "I blew it at the last minute."

"Last week you asked me what I wanted for breakfast on my birthday." Kyungsoo's voice hums in his chest. "You're not very good at this."

"I can cook, at least. Step on my feet and hold on, I have to go to the counter so I can set this stuff down."

Kyungsoo snorted and looked up, dark eyes still bleary with sleep. (He was in one of Chanyeol's t-shirts, loose and draping with a stretched out collar that revealed more of his throat and chest than Chanyeol could typically handle.) "Really?"

"It's your birthday," Chanyeol said, curving down just enough to press a kiss to Kyungsoo's hairline. "Let go or don't, this milk is cold and I'm gonna drop it soon."

Kyungsoo laughed, clinging on tight and stepping up onto Chanyeol's slippers to allow himself to be ferried awkwardly around his own kitchen. A stowaway boyfriend.

"You usually hate this," Chanyeol grunted, wobbling stiff and heavy over to the counter.

"Don't tell anybody," Kyungsoo mumbled against Chanyeol's sweater. "It's a secret."

"I'm bad at keeping secrets. We both know this. We just talked about it."

Kyungsoo grumbled something unintelligible under his breath. "So were you feeding human food to my cat or not?"

"I was _not_ ," Chanyeol said, indignant as he worked around Kyungsoo's head and shoulders, chopping up onions and garlic and mushrooms together.

Dracula chose this moment to stand up on his back feet to pat pitifully at the leg of Chanyeol's jeans and mewl his very distinctive "more please" sound.

"He also can't keep a secret," Chanyeol said, staring daggers at his boyfriend's cat. "I guess you've got a type. Brace yourself, I left the eggs on the table."

Kyungsoo peered around him. "What are you making?"

"Breakfast," Chanyeol said, pulling Kyungsoo's wok down from the rack. "Let go, I have to sear the kobe beef."

"You have to what?"

"You heard me," Chanyeol said, taking the opportunity to wrap his long arms around Kyungsoo's narrow shoulders and squeeze him until he complained. (It took a little longer these days before Kyungsoo would complain. Chanyeol kept quiet about this observation for fear that Kyungsoo would reverse his progress.) "It's seven. Go back to bed for a little while, I'll bring you breakfast when it's done."

"Don't tell me what to do," Kyungsoo grumbled, wrestling a little to untangle themso that he could pull himself up to sit on the counter. "I have to make sure you don't feed Dracula any more human food."

Later Chanyeol caught Kyungsoo feeding Dracula a little piece of beef under the table. "He's my cat," Kyungsoo said defiantly when Chanyeol called him out.

"Hypocrite," Chanyeol said, affectionate as he wiped a tiny splotch of egg yolk from the corner of Kyungsoo's mouth with his thumb. "You're disgusting."

"I'm the best," Kyungsoo countered.

"You're the best," Chanyeol said. "Happy birthday."

 

The topic of how they should get to Jongdae's place for Kyungsoo's birthday party had been discussed and argued over for months, with Kyungsoo insisting that since they'd been best friends since they were kids it wouldn't be weird to go in the same car, while Chanyeol continued to dwell nervously on the fansite admin who'd called him Kyungsoo's lover and then posted photos of him (face mercifully blurred - maybe his flattery won her over to give him at least that thin slice of privacy) with captions like "Kyungsoo's boyfriend? kkkkkkk" and heart-eyed emoticons.

"I don't want to make anything weird for you," Chanyeol had said.

"The fansites think I date everyone I so much as look at," Kyungsoo had argued in return. "Remember when Seokjin and I were in the same movie? The media went wild over our 'forbidden romance' until it turned out that my scenes were shot remotely in front of a green screen because I was still in France for Fashion Week."

Chanyeol had stared at him, eyes boring through Kyungsoo's skull. "Did you?"

Kyungsoo had simply cackled in return. "No. I was dating Yifan then."

"I can't believe you've never told me about your dating history. I thought we were friends."

"I thought you were straight."

"So?"

"Shh," Kyungsoo had said, holding a finger to Chanyeol's lips. "I know. I'm sorry. I promise not to do it again."

Long story short, Kyungsoo had ultimately insisted on driving to his own birthday party no matter what Chanyeol thought about it, which meant that he had to fold himself delicately ("Boyfriend origami," Kyungsoo had commented once, face and voice as deadpan as a cemetery for cookware) in order to fit into the passenger seat of Kyungsoo's low car.

"I should start doing yoga," Chanyeol moaned.

Kyungsoo struggled not to smile, but for an award winning actor he was really bad at acting sometimes. "I thought you liked having your knees up by your ears," he said, turning the key in the ignition.

"Context is everything," Chanyeol shot back, struggling with the power seat controls, desperate for even one single extra centimeter of leg room. "How you feelin'? You ready?"

"I was born ready," Kyungsoo said, putting on the throaty tones of one of his recent roles as he expertly navigated the alleyway connecting his building to the main thoroughfare.

"Haha. I mean are you nervous."

"No."

Had he been in the passenger seat of any other vehicle Chanyeol might have crossed his legs primly. "Hm."

"... Okay." Kyungsoo bit his lips together. Streetlights flickered by, glancing off of the curve of his cheeks and the shine of his wide eyes. "Only a little."

"There it is," Chanyeol said in a stage whisper. (He was starting to get used to being a human pretzel. Maybe he was just going numb?)

"I don't know," Kyungsoo said after a full minute of silence. "It's going to be a lot of people. I guess I'm nervous but mostly I'm just annoyed."

Chanyeol, for once in his life, chose to stay quiet and instead let Kyungsoo fill the quiet once he got his thoughts in order. (Don't let anybody tell you he'd never learned anything from his best friend.)

"I just really want to enjoy it," Kyungsoo said after a little while. "It sounds really fun. Every part of it is something I like to do. Hanging out with people I like, listening to music, eating food Minseok paid for..."

"But?"

"But I almost never do," Kyungsoo said. It had a note of finality to it, but he opened his mouth again anyway, eyes fixed on the road (mud-speckled snow still lying in compressed drifts around the curbs) and hands tight on the steering wheel.

"Hyejin will be there," Chanyeol said.

Kyungsoo brightened. "Jimin too?"

"Well he _is_ her husband and _was_ included on the invitation and _was_ the one who sent the handwritten RSVP card and called me yesterday afternoon to double check how dark you like your chocolate, so I'm thinking maybe."

"If you love me you'll help me talk Jongdae into letting me take over his karaoke room," Kyungsoo said.

"Because I love you I did that last month. He'll try to tell you it was his idea but he's a scoundrel and a liar. You still have to make an appearance, though. It is your birthday party. I'll be there," he tacked on quickly.

"Why didn't you tell me Jimin had a wife?"

"Why didn't you tell me you were dating Yifan?"

"It was really more of a physical thing."

"That's not helping," Chanyeol stuttered out, ears beginning to burn. "At least I know I'm your type."

"You are," Kyungsoo said, shooting Chanyeol a curious look as he turned on his right blinker to take the offramp exit. "Isn't that obvious?"

Chanyeol threw his hands in the air. "Well! I don't know!"

"You're my type," Kyungsoo said again. Paused. "My type is you?"

Chanyeol stared at him. "Wha?"

"What's that thing you say sometimes? Long, tall, looks like a great dane puppy?"

"Tall and gangly," Chanyeol said. "The great dane puppy part is right though."

"It'd be faster to just say that you're my type. I don't know, just... 'what's your type?' Chanyeol." Kyungsoo laughed, calm facade cracking a little around the edges. "This is gross."

"No, compliment me more."

"I refuse. It's my birthday," Kyungsoo said, pulling into the Kim & Kim home's long driveway.

"And you look beautiful."

"I _will_ have a passenger eject button installed."

"Get out of the car," Chanyeol said, beginning the long and awkward process of unfolding himself out onto the driveway.

"Treat her well," Kyungsoo said, pressing the key into the valet's palm along with what looked like at least 50,000 W.

"You can say this about the Kims," Chanyeol said, leaning down a little to speak quietly into Kyungsoo's ear as they walked up the steps to the front door. "They spare no expense."

"I pay for most of it," Kyungsoo commented back. "It's my birthday party. They host and Jongdae plans everything. Minseok ponies up for a lot of the food, though. He says he knows a guy."

"You can say this about the Kims," Chanyeol amended, pausing in the foyer to dutifully help Kyungsoo shrug out of his black wool peacoat. "They're really good at spending other people's money."

Used to be that Kyungsoo would nudge him off whenever Chanyeol stepped in to help with menial, simple tasks, but after almost a year of being followed around by Chanyeol on a quest to heap all the affection on Kyungsoo that he'd been holding in over years of platonic friendship he'd eventually just given in, letting Chanyeol wait on him hand and foot (within reason) because the other option was constant arguments. Even Kyungsoo got tired of arguing - although to be fair his way of arguing was a quick elbow jab to the kidneys and the silent treatment. But still.

They were fashionably late, just barely, so the vast space was already filled with people. Chanyeol could tell when Kyungsoo tensed up even without touching him, so he bumped Kyungsoo's shoulder gently. "Wanna go see if my mom's here? She misses you. She keeps asking about you."

Kyungsoo laughed, shoulders loosening a little. "We had dinner at your parents' restaurant last week. She shouldn't have had time to miss me."

"So is that a no?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Kyungsoo replied. "I'm going to go find Jongdae and Minseok-hyung, okay? Go check out the buffet or something."

"I'll get you a plate," Chanyeol called after him, but between the music and the chatter he couldn't hear Kyungsoo's response.

"Is it better than last year?" came Jongdae's voice, far closer than Chanyeol expected. "Jesus, Chanyeol, get up. I just asked you a question."

Chanyeol patted dust off his jeans, sheepish and rattled. "What was the question?"

"Is it better than last year," Jongdae repeated, bringing a champagne flute to his lips. "Fewer people. And we got the karaoke room ready like you asked. How's he been doing?"

"He's..." Kyungsoo was fine, mostly. Sometimes he'd tuck tight into himself and not come out again for what seemed like forever. Sometimes he'd go on hiatus unexpectedly to go to a beach somewhere and lie in the sun with a book and his best friend on the lounge chair next to him. "He's good," Chanyeol said. "He's himself."

Jongdae made a face. "Yikes."

"Shut up. You love him."

"Sure, I just don't have any dirt on him anymore." Jongdae sighed, gazing wistfully over the crowd. "Makes things trickier."

A waiter passed by carrying a tray of chocolate strawberries and Chanyeol snagged as many as he could hold in one hand. "What dirt? He doesn't give enough of a fuck to have dirt."

"Well not anymore," Jongdae said. He looked forlorn and slightly affronted. "I blame you, by the way." He glanced up into Chanyeol's eyes, caught a glance of the look of almost constipated curiosity on his face. He sighed. "The dirt was that he liked you, you giant walnut."

"How is that dirt?"

"Maybe because I've known since about five minutes after I met you two?" Jongdae shrugged. "I tried to talk to you about it too but you were too into the idea of being straight."

"I—" Chanyeol stuffed a strawberry in his mouth to shut himself up. "Don't be stupid," he said, spluttering through the bite.

"Mm." Jongdae tipped up his champagne flute to get the last few drops, licking his lips languidly as he put the empty glass on a passing waiter's tray. "You two fucking each other in the ass yet?"

"I'm leaving," Chanyeol said.

"You can't," Jongdae said back, nodding over toward the thickest part of the crowd. "Looks like Kyungsoo's got plans for you."

Chanyeol looked up where Jongdae was gesturing and saw Kyungsoo, pink cheeked with heat and fun. Jimin and his wife followed close behind. "Chanyeol," Kyungsoo said, just a little bit breathless. "Wanna go karaoke?"

"Of course," Chanyeol said, pointedly ignoring Jongdae's I Told You So look. "I have to go say hi to some people but I'll be there soon, get started without me."

"Your mom asked me where you were," Kyungsoo replied, reaching out to squeeze Chanyeol's wrist. (It was a private event, but still neither of them could afford to be too obvious.) "I get to pick your first song."

"As long as it's anything from the f(x) discography," Chanyeol said.

"We'll see," Kyungsoo said, swanning past him with a small group of people trailing along behind him.

"I'm gonna go too," Jongdae said, grinning up at him. "Hit some high notes, really knock their socks off."

"Kyungsoo's in there. All socks present will have already been knocked off."

"I don't have to stand here and listen to this in my own home," Jongdae said. "Go find your mom."

 

"Kyungsoo seemed nervous," his mother said, her voice mild. Casual. Officially she didn't know they were together but unofficially she'd already let Chanyeol know that Hawaii might be a good place to have a wedding. ("The paperwork will be simpler," she'd said, looking him directly in the eye. "Depending on who you marry.")

"Yeah," Chanyeol said back, eyeing the buffet table behind his mother. "He gets worried about big events sometimes. Are those tiny cheesecakes?"

"He's got you," she replied. His mother was short and slight, (Kyungsoo had once commented that in order to have carried Chanyeol she must be a kiwi bird), dressed perfectly, a glass filled with what looked like a gin and tonic but which Chanyeol knew was just bubbly water with lime. She was very good at appearing to have a wild time. "Isn't that good enough?"

"It doesn't work like that," Chanyeol said, hovering over the closest food table like a vulture. "Mom, oh my god, look at these cupcakes—"

"You're good medicine, Chanyeol."

"Thanks," he said. He knew he wasn't going to get anywhere, not here, not now. His mother was beautiful in a silver-bronze dress and the shoes Kyungsoo had bought her for Christmas and he wasn't going to get anywhere. Pick your battles, Kyungsoo would say to him sometimes; the dirty hypocrite. "I'm gonna go find Kyungsoo. Check in with him."

She tipped her head up and imperiously tapped one cheek. "Pay the toll," she said.

Chanyeol bent down (and down, and down - she was smaller than Kyungsoo even on heels) and kissed his mother on the cheek. "Love you," he said.

She reached up and tugged affectionately on one of his earlobes like she used to when he was a kid. "Go see how Kyungsoo's doing," she said, gently nudging him away. "He needs you more than I do."

Chanyeol laughed. "Sure," he said, backing away.

It took him a while to make it back through the hallways to the dark room he knew had been set up with mics and screens and a karaoke machine. It had taken over half an hour to wander through the small crowd of people, saying hello to people he recognized, saying hello to people who recognized him somehow even though he couldn't think of any time they could have possibly met.Outside the door he could hear joyful shouts from within, classic pop songs thumping through the wooden door. Chanyeol could hear Jongdae, Jimin, Baekhyun...

... Kyungsoo, shouting something in that one voice of his that Chanyeol thought of as his excited puppy voice - stuttering, awkward, happy and low and singing - and then there was music.

It was a song that had been released about seven months ago to much fanfare, a duet that people loved but which Kyungsoo refused to listen to. He'd change the station if it came up on the radio, leave if it starting playing in a store, skip it on any playlist. But it was coming through the door, which was Chanyeol's first clue that Kyungsoo was drunk.

He slipped into the room, sticking close to the wall to sidle up to Baekhyun. "How many has he had?"

"He hasn't replaced the screen protector on his phone yet," Baekhyun replied. "Doesn't he hate this song?"

"Nah," Chanyeol said, not taking his eyes off his best friend. (His boyfriend.) "He just thinks it's overplayed."

"He'll leave a restaurant if it comes on."

"He thinks it's _really_ overplayed?"

"Isn't this your composition?" Baekhyun gave him a skeptical look. "And your lyrics? Seems like a shitty way to support his best friend is all."

Chanyeol shrugged, ears hot but hopefully hidden in the dark. "It probably embarrasses him."

"Why?"

Kyungsoo was yelling the lyrics, two thirds of the way through the song: _just nod a little bit for me_

"Because I wrote it for him," Chanyeol replied.

Baekhyun stayed silent almost until the song was over, mulling over the lyrics. "You two are the worst," he said, fondness dripping from his voice. "If I puke on Minseok's carpet I'm blaming you."

"You can try," Chanyeol said. The song ended, leaving Kyungsoo pink-cheeked and gasping for breath in front of the screen. "I gotta go. Hold my drink."

Baekhyun let out a brief squawk of complaint but Chanyeol ignored him, striding toward the front of the room to pick Kyungsoo up and toss him into the air the way he loved but wouldn't admit to. Kyungsoo protested, laughing, hitting him in the ribs a few times once he was finally back on the ground.

"Let's go to Hawaii," Kyungsoo said, pressing in against him with cheeks pinked with alcohol and his heart mouth set in its biggest, most sincere smile. The other denizens of the karaoke room were already squabbling over which song to pick next, something almost gladiatorial brewing over Big Bang vs SNSD. No one heard him but Chanyeol.

  
Chanyeol coughed out a laugh, wrapped his arms around him. "Have you been talking to my mom?" He said it as a joke but as the words left his mouth it occurred to him that maybe he was letting on more than he should be.

Kyungsoo struggled a little, just enough to put a little bit of space between them. (Jongdae had once disparaged their careful distance as 'leaving room for Jesus.') "Yeah. Why?"

"She just keeps mentioning it," Chanyeol said, knowing even as he spoke that he was being suspicious as hell. "What did she say?"

"Just that it's nice this time of year." Kyungsoo hooked two fingers around Chanyeol's wrist and tugged at it a little. "Can we?"

"What, like right now?"

"Yeah," Kyungsoo breathed, tipping in again.

"You're drunk."

"I know," Kyungsoo said, shooting a slightly off-balance look up into Chanyeol's face. "Had to. I know what I'm doing. You wanna go to Hawaii? Right now?"

There was a funny moment then, the next track finally starting after a riotous quarrel and the bass kicking in and the lights dropping at almost the same time that Kyungsoo tipped his face up and his eyes shone in the flickering light of the tv screen and he looked drunk and scared and strangely hopeful.

"Yeah," Chanyeol said. "Yeah, I really do."

"Okay," Kyungsoo said, stepping away. "I have to go find Junmyeon and let him know. You sure you can afford to take the time off?"

"Are you kidding?" Somebody queued up another song that had Chanyeol's fingerprints all over it, his composition, his lyrics in the chorus. "The royalties for Let Me Love You have me set for years. You sounded good, by the way."

Kyungsoo shrugged him off, blushing from the ears in. "I'll have Junmyeon book the tickets and text you the itinerary. I'm going to go pack, okay?"

 

  
"Kyungsoo and I are going to Hawaii," Chanyeol stuttered out, breathing the words almost directly into his mother's ear as he crept up behind her.

"And what," she said, calm and collected despite everything. "You want my permission?"

"Yeah," Chanyeol said. "No! No, I just—"

She turned and reached up, smoothing her hands down his shoulders almost as though she were checking the fit of his shirt, smoothing the fabric fondly under her fingers. "Chanyeol-ah," she said. "You're an adult now. I wish you were still my baby every day, but you're adult and have to make your own choices." She pulled him down then, touch gentle, and stood up on her tiptoes to whisper in his ear. "If you don't invite me to the wedding I'm disowning you."

All Chanyeol could think to say was, "What wedding?"

"Whatever wedding," she replied, brushing a spot of almost invisible lint from his sleeve. "Go pack. Don't leave Kyungsoo waiting any longer."

 

He'd been trying not to think about the blue velvet box hidden on the very top shelf of his wardrobe, succeeding to the point that he surprised himself with it as he dug through the deepest recesses of the closet in search of summer clothes he'd packed away two months ago.

Chanyeol had had them made on a whim, mostly because he had money lying and he saw an ad for it at 2am one night while scrolling through his SNS, but also because when he turned to share it Kyungsoo was dead asleep, (exhausted, fucked out and still gasping for breath), snoozing on his naked chest like some kind of a strangely angelic incubus.

Chanyeol had sat drunk in his home studio for hours recording himself saying all manner of ridiculous things - reciting the alphabet, quick scraps of verse - but when he played all of it back he kept coming back to the same clip over and over and over. It was small and embarrassing and he'd laughed as he recorded it, put on some aegyo for it, gagged over it afterward. But he kept coming back to it, so he recorded it again. This time he said it like he meant it - because he did, no matter how stupid it was.

They were made out of platinum, one etched with the jagged wavelength of human speech and the other smooth and unmarred, still laying dormant and waiting to be engraved. Sometimes he stared at them in secret, opened their blue velvet box and took them out and out them on, the engraved one on his ring finger and the untouched one on his pinkie. He'd lie on his back on his bed with his hand stretched out above him, clinking them together just to hear it. Just to think about what it meant.

 _Hawaii would be a nice place to get married,_ his mother's voice whispered in the back of his head. _Depending on who you marry._

In Hawaii it would still be Kyungsoo's birthday when they landed.

Chanyeol slipped the box into his pocket and went back to rifling through his drawers in search of a swimsuit he hadn't worn in three months, because Junmyeon had wearily texted him an itinerary for an international flight scheduled to take off in two hours and he wouldn't miss it for the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the song is let me love you which chanyeol did as a duet with a guy whose name i can't remember off the top of my head shh i know he's famous but i'm sleepy
> 
> thank you for coming with me on this journey i hope you liked it!! i hope to be back with more chansoo at a not-so-later date


End file.
